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Dems & GOP Both Thankful for Midterm Surprises | US Politics In :60 | GZERO Media

US Dems and GOP can be thankful this Thanksgiving

Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington, DC shares his perspective on US politics in a Thanksgiving edition.


What are Republicans and Democrats thankful for this holiday season?

Democrats are thankful for three Republicans named Mehmet Oz, Don Bolduc and Blake Masters, who lost three winnable Senate seats in Arizona, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania, allowing Democrats to keep their majority. Democrats keep the majority; it means they can continue to confirm judges and confirm any executive branch nominees that President Biden puts forward should there be any openings. These were clearly winnable seats for the Republicans in this cycle that should have strongly favored them, but we saw Trump aligned nominees like these three give up winnable seats.

Republicans are thankful that there are alternatives emerging to President Donald Trump in the Republican primary in 2024. President Trump has declared his intention to run. However, three Republican governors, Brian Kemp, Ron DeSantis, and Greg Abbott had very strong showings in their reelection cycles this year and that's going to embolden challengers to Trump in the primary, and this could be a very competitive primary, giving them some alternatives to Trump, given that there's a growing number of Republicans who think he can't win a general election. Now, of course, the challenge will be, can these guys win if Trump decides that he's not going to support them should he lose the primary? But that's a question for another day.

Now, Republicans and Democrats are thankful that they're not going to be spending their holiday seasons relitigating false claims of election fraud the way they did in 2020. President Trump in 2020 claimed that the election was rigged and stolen from him. He refused to concede, and that really dominated the news cycle from Thanksgiving all the way through the January six riots, which were a terrible day for most lawmakers that were present. That's not going to happen this cycle. No one's really questioning the results of these elections. There were some questions about some voting machines malfunctioning in Arizona, but for the most part, this is a pretty clean election, and everyone understands that the legitimate ballots that were cast led to a legitimate outcome, a good day for American democracy. It's something that we should all be thankful for.

"Red Wave" Coming in US Midterms | Quick Take | GZERO Media

"Red wave" coming in US midterms

Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi, everybody. Ian Bremmer here. A Quick take to get you started on your week, and of course, we are looking forward, if that's the right term, to tomorrow's midterm elections in the United States. Increasingly a time of political dysfunction and tension and polarization and conflict, and tomorrow will certainly be no different.

First of all, in terms of outcomes, almost always in the United States, the party that is not in power, that doesn't occupy the presidency, picks up seats in the midterms. Tomorrow should be no different. Biden's approval ratings are not incredibly poor, but certainly low. View of the economy, which is the top indicator that most people say they are voting on, is quite negative, and expectations are negative going forward, even though the US isn't quite in a recession.

That means that the Republicans will easily win the House. I don't think that there's any need to question predictions around that front. It's more whether it's 15 seats or whether it's 30 seats, how much of a wave it actually looks like. Some believe that it's easier to govern if there's a 30-seat swing, because that will mean that the Republicans will be less beholden to relatively extreme members of their caucus.

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Turnout in Georgia Broke Records for Midterm Primaries | US Politics In :60 | GZERO Media

Lessons from US midterm primaries in Georgia, Texas, and Alabama

Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington, discusses Tuesday's primaries.

What happened in Tuesday's primaries?

Several states held primary elections on Tuesday of this week with the most interesting elections in Georgia, Texas, and Alabama. In Georgia, two incumbent Republicans who were instrumental in certifying the results of President Joe Biden's victory in 2020 won the nomination for governor and secretary of state against two Trump-backed opponents. The sitting governor who Trump had been targeting for months over his role in the 2020 election won by over 50 points, a sign that while Republican voters still love Donald Trump, his hold over the party is not absolute. This is going to create an opening for challengers in the 2024 presidential election cycle.

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Ketanji Brown Jackson Confirmed, But GOP Dominates SCOTUS | US Politics In :60 | GZERO Media

Ketanji Brown Jackson confirmed, but GOP will dominate SCOTUS for years

Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington, discusses the Supreme Court confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Today's question, what does the confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson mean for the US?

She'll be the first black woman ever to serve on the highest court. What's the political significance of this? Not much. After Republicans took at 6-3 advantage on the court during the Trump administration, the conservatives now have what looks like a durable majority that will dominate the court for years to come. Brown Jackson's vote is unlikely to be decisive in many cases, which frequently split along partisan lines with the six conservative justices aligning in a block against the three liberal justices on issues like separation of powers, the scope of the federal government, and voting rights.

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Supreme Court Hearings Served No Purpose & Could do Harm | US Politics: In60 | GZERO Media

SCOTUS confirmation hearings no longer serve a purpose

Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington, discusses the Supreme Court hearings.

Today's question. Have the Supreme Court hearings lost their purpose?

Blanketing cable news this week are the Senate Judiciary hearings to confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. Brown Jackson surpasses anyone's standard of a qualified Supreme Court justice. She's educated at the best law schools. She's been a Supreme Court clerk, a public defender, a trial court judge, and a circuit court judge. She's at least as qualified as anybody else serving on the court today. And nobody questions that she has a top notch intellect and character to sit on the Court.

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Mitt Romney Isn’t the Future of the GOP. He’s the Past | The Red Pen | GZERO Media

Mitt Romney isn't the future of the GOP. He's the past.

In this edition of The Red Pen, we take a look at an editorial by the FT's Janan Ganesh, who argues that Mitt Romney represents a future for US conservatism post-Trump and is in a unique position to turn around the Republican Party. Ian Bremmer and Eurasia Group's Jon Lieber point out that the GOP is actually moving in a very different direction.

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Congress After The Attempt To Overthrow Democracy | Democratic Senator Chris Murphy | GZERO World

Congress after the attempt to overthrow democracy: Democratic Senator Chris Murphy

Two-term Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut joins Ian Bremmer to talk about his harrowing experience during the Capitol riots of January 6, why he thinks an impeachment trial is still valuable even if Republican support for a conviction looks increasingly unlikely, if he believes President Biden's $1.9 trillion stimulus package will pass both chambers, and how he thinks US-China foreign policy should change under the new administration.

Watch this extended interview from the recent episode of GZERO World: After the insurrection: will Congress find common ground?

Ian Bremmer: US Facing Domestic Insurrection & Terrorism | Quick Take | GZERO Media

Quick Take: US facing domestic insurrection & terrorism

Ian Bremmer's Quick Take:

What a crazy day. A historic day and not one that you really want to have in your memory with the United States facing domestic insurrection, terrorism. Thousands of people converging on the Capitol and the seat of the legislative branch of government after having been stirred up with disinformation and fake news by the president, President Trump and his supporters this morning. I will be very clear that the violence that we have already seen is the responsibility of the president directly. And we've never in our lives, the last time you had an election like this was in 1876 and still the transition was handled more responsibly.

You've never had a sitting president actually work to undermine the outcome of a free and fair election. And that is exactly what occurred. And it was interesting, very late, but nonetheless, Senate majority leader McConnell came out just a few hours ago and said that President Trump's efforts to overturn the electoral vote was a threat at the heart of democracy that should not be supported. And yet, nonetheless, you could still get more than a dozen sitting, GOP senators and a majority of sitting GOP members of the house to support President Trump, knowing full well that the election had not been stolen. That indeed Biden had won a free and fair election. But because President Trump's influence over the voting base of the Republican Party so outweighs that of any other Republican figure, they were prepared to go with him even after he lost the election, even as a lame duck president. And that's the problem.

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